Derelict Harlem school gets new life

Decades after P.S. 186 closed, a tripartite team including the owner, the Boys & Girls Club of Harlem, lines up financing for a $50 million project to convert the building into 72 apartments, plus a 10,000-square-foot club.

Decades after an ornate Harlem school was abandoned and left to crumble, a development team has cleared the last hurdle to turning it into an affordable-housing project and new home for the Boys & Girls Club of Harlem.

A tripartite team consisting of Monadnock Development, Alembic Community Development and the club announced Tuesday it has closed all the financing for the contentious $48.6 million restoration of P.S. 186, which stands at 521 W. 145th St., between Broadway and Amsterdam avenues. The building will be reborn with 63 apartments for low-income families, seven for middle-income families and eight market-rate units, along with one for the superintendent. In addition, the development will feature a 10,000-square-foot facility for the Boys & Girls Club. Construction is scheduled to begin in the fall.

"The closing represents a critically important step in the long-awaited renewal of this wonderful but neglected building," said Alembic Principal Benjamin Warnke, who noted that preliminary work has already begun on the project.

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The Boys & Girls Club purchased the property in the 1980s with hopes of restoring it for its new home, but fiscal reality barred that outcome, and later sparked a heated debate in the community as to whether the school should be torn down or restored.

In the end, the development team settled on a mix of apartments and a funding structure that reduced the club's space to make way for more income-producing apartments, but will still allow the nonprofit to operate in the building without having to fork over much of its operating cash to mortgage payments. The new plan, which will save the building money while also providing affordable apartments, has won plaudits from many in the community.

The downside is that accomplishing many tasks made the project a pricey one. Its per-unit cost came out well above the norm for affordable projects in the city.

By preserving the building, however, the developers succeeded in scoring historic tax credits that otherwise wouldn't have been available. The developers also saved millions in demolition costs and didn't tap into additional city subsidy that would have been needed for new construction, which when taken into account brings the project closer to affordable norms.

"We are really pleased that this is happening now, and we look forward to having a new club," said Shirley Lewis of the club.